


Stand By Me

by lialexington



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Airman Steve Rogers, F/M, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Protective Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2019-10-03 20:45:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17291099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lialexington/pseuds/lialexington
Summary: Charlotte Finley Blake works as a nurse at an airfield hospital in WWII alongside her airman fiance. When she tries to take their dangerous relationship into her own hands, she is discovered by Captain Rogers and faces a choice: Let him in on the secret, or let him think the worst.





	1. An Irreversible Step

The roar of returning bombers shook dust from the plaster walls. Finn hurried down the corridor with the other nurses, carrying her white cap so it wouldn’t fly off in the chaos. A surgeon, coat bloody, shoved several white-uniformed women aside, and Finn felt the bruises on her arm twinge as she pushed back off the wall and continued towards the sick bay, where the injured pilots would be coming in. The last of the other nurses passed her at faster paces, none of them noticing her slower steps, her hesitating glances. Roy would be returning with the injured, as he always did. Would probably throw someone else out of the plane if he had to, if it helped him return to base. To Finn.

She felt her stomach rise in her throat as she remembered the things he’d done before, things only she knew about. James Howie had returned one time with a concussion after he’d tried to put the damaged plane down in a field, only to given a crack on the head and threatened with another if he didn’t go back to the base. Roy said he wouldn’t remember it, of course, but James hadn’t made eye contact with Finn since. Andy Greene had stumbled out of a smoking bomber with third degree burns on one hand and frostbite on the other. Roy had told her, in hushed tones, stroking her hair, how Andy had gone soft and wanted to leave the open-air window turret when a fire broke out between him and the cockpit. In the end, he’d come to his senses, given his gloves to Roy, who’d lost his in the firefight, and battled the flames while shooting down the German planes that tailed them through the freezing night air that blew into the gun port. The thing was, Roy still had his original pair of gloves in his flight bag. Finn had checked.

A uniformed pilot jogged towards her and grabbed her arm, jerking her cap out of her hand. “You gotta come with me,” he panted. “Doctor’s gonna need more hands.” Relieved to not be going back to the hospital bay, where Roy undoubtedly waited, she turned on her heel and followed the sweat patterns on the pilot’s flight suit.

When they pushed through the doors to the surgery, the first thing Finn noticed was the blood, dripping off the gurney and onto the concrete floors. She pushed past the pilot, who was standing helplessly in the doorway, and pinched the injured man’s stomach together, trying vainly to contain the guts that threatened to spill over his sides and onto the floor with the blood. To distract herself from the heaving pink mass in front of her, she first saw a large huddled mass on the bench in the corner, then looked back at the injured man. More blood poured profusely from a bullet wound in his hand, but his face was obscured by his flight mask, hooked up into a new tank and feeding oxygen into his lungs.

Finn looked back up as the doors slammed open again, revealing the same surgeon that had shoved her into the wall earlier. Two doctors trailed behind him. All three of their long coats were bloodstained, and the surgeon looked irritated to see her. “What took you so long, Nurse?” He turned to one of his companions, and muttered, “I asked for Dr. Rand. This is the best you could get me?”  
One of the other doctors glanced at her, then gently pushed her hands out of the way and pulled the man’s sides together where she had been doing. “Doc, would you rather have Cap over there doing it?” Finn looked back at the figure in the corner, finally able to make out a large man, his arms over his knees, head bowed, hands shaking. “Get a tourniquet on that hand, Blake,” said the doctor, moving over for the surgeon, who was still muttering about lack of dignity in the surgery.

Finn wiped her hands on her already bloody dress, grabbed a bandage from a shelf, and pulled on the man’s slippery hand, propping it upright against her ribs. She wrapped the bandage around his forearm, tied a knot, and tugged hard. The moment the tourniquet pulled tight, the man’s eyes shot open, and Finn’s heart stopped in recognition as he glanced down at the doctors currently sewing his insides back inside. When he looked back at her, a sliver of ice ran through her veins as an idea choked her mind. Did he deserve to live after everything he’d done? Did she? It had all been for her, after all.

She slipped a finger under the knot.

Immobilized by his injuries, Roy was unable to stop her as she loosened the tourniquet enough to allow blood flow, but tight enough to dig slightly into his arm and appear to be doing its job. She set his hand back next to his hip on the gurney, ignoring the blood that continued to flow, blending in with that which still leaked from his stomach. “Blake,” the surgeon grunted, trying to maneuver a needle between the doctors’ fingers, “Give me a hand.”

Ignoring the furious set of eyes that glared from over the flight mask, and unknowing of the inquisitive ones that followed her from the corner, she set to stitching her patient’s stomach back together.

 

In the dormitory washroom, later, Finn touched the caked blood in her hair and sighed, remembering the cap she’d dropped in the hallway. There was red smeared on her face, too, which trailed across the bridge of her nose and onto her cheekbone, and more spotted on her neck and jaw. It matched the bruises smattered on her collarbone and arm. She sighed and set the wet flannel back in the basin, wrapping her robe around her and gathering her things for the showers. She could wake Sophie and have her scrub the blood out under the faucet, but Sophie had been up to her elbows all day too, and as kind as she would be, Finn couldn’t bear taking her out of bed for more blood.

Gathering the bundle in her arms, Finn padded down the hallway to the women’s showers. The light bulbs buzzed over her head and the floor, recently mopped, shined under her feet. Heavy steps echoed behind her and she turned. Men were not allowed, but not uncommon in the women’s wing, especially at this hour.

A dark shape turned the corner and approached her. She recognized the man, who she had last seen bent over in the corner of the surgery. He was even larger standing up, and she stepped back as he got closer, taking in the dark blue flight suit, the messy blond hair, the famous blue eyes. _So this is the legendary Captain America,_ she thought.

“Nurse Blake?” His voice was quiet, but held an edge.

“Reporting for duty, sir,” She replied just as quietly, but being sure to throw her bloody features and full arms into sharp relief under the bare lights.

“Lieutenant Collins has survived, if you care to know,” the captain said, gauging her face for a response. Her stomach twisted at the thought that Roy would live, would know what she did to keep him from doing so. She’d have to leave, transfer so that he wouldn’t find her. He couldn’t ever find her after this-

“Thank you for telling me,” she said, forcing a relieved smile onto her face. “The Lieutenant is a good friend of mine, I’m counting on him living through this war.” She flashed the tiny diamond that glinted on her left hand.

Steve Rogers looked taken aback, looking between her blood-smeared face and her chapped hand. “I found this on the floor after they took him back to the hospital bay.” He held out a small, tied strip of bandaging. “I remember Doctor Hewlett told you to tie that. Any idea why a tourniquet would fall off?”

Finn’s throat seized, the towel and soap tumbling out of her arms. She could get court-martialed for this, discharged back to the streets of Manhattan, charged with attempted murder, sent to prison. “Oh, god,” she gasped, transforming the despair she felt into faked anguish for her fiancé. “I could have killed him, how could I be so clumsy?”

Captain Rogers’s eyes narrowed. “I believe I know acting when I see it, Blake, so I suggest you explain why you tried to kill the Lieutenant.” He stepped closer until she was edged against the wall, staring into the glare of the lightbulbs instead of up at the belligerent hero in front of her. Her stomach quivered, and she was glad she hadn’t been able to eat anything after the surgery. She leaned her head back, searching for an explanation. He can’t know. Nobody can know. “When was your last leave?” The captain asked suddenly, and she looked at him.

“Three days ago.”

“How did you spend it?”

“The Lieutenant and I went to dinner.”

“Just dinner?”

She followed his eyes and saw the bruises that darkened her collarbone down to her upper arm; they had come uncovered when she had dropped the towel and the robe had slipped slightly down her shoulder. Under the yellow lights, their purple turned to black-brown, and the captain’s hand came up to rest gently on where they were darkest. She flinched away. “We don’t – it’s not-“

“It’s not what I think?” Captain Rogers inclined his head at her. “Right now, I think you’re lying to me.” Lies flitted through her head, from a failed boating outing to consensual violent sex, but she couldn’t find anything that would match with a dinner date. “Listen, Blake, I know that you’ve gotta have a good reason to try and kill someone. I just want to know that reason.”

He can’t know. Nobody can know. “Is it really any of your business, Captain Rogers?” The words slid out with a sneer, and she hoped her tone was dismissive enough that he believed her. 

The confidence on his face faltered, so quick a flicker of doubt that she felt a wash of relief at its appearance. Fixing her eyes on the bare light bulb behind him, she hoped the blood on her face was more visible than the fear. “Do you think I’ll be able to go clean up anytime soon, Captain?”

He shook his head as if to clear his eyes, a lock of blond falling onto his forehead. He didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t think he’d pursue it further. Not tonight, anyway. His hand came up, and he brushed a little dried blood off her temple. “Go clean up, Blake. I expect to hear the rest of this later. Attempted murder charges aren’t taken lightly in the United States Army.”

Finn ducked past him and gathered her things back in her arms as he started to walk slowly back to the pilots’ dormitories. “Tell that to Lieutenant Roy Collins,” she muttered at his back, and only remembered halfway through her shower that he had enhanced hearing.


	2. Chapter 2

Finn worked mindlessly through the next day, half listening for a call to the General’s office. She changed bandages, administered painkillers, and fielded the wandering hands of the more cheerful pilots. _If I never have to slap another randy, bedridden ass-grabber again_ , she thought, _I’ll never try to kill Roy again. No matter how bad it gets._ Another hand reached from a bed, and with practiced movements, she maneuvered out of its reach and smiled tautly at its owner. “Need something, Harrison?”  
Harrison grinned cheekily back. “Sure thing, Blake. Got something, too. You ever done with Collins, keep me in mind, yeah?”  
Finn was about to roll her eyes at him when several shouts started on the far side of the room. She looked over and saw Captain Rogers, in an identical but cleaner flight suit, clapping the shoulders of another pilot. When their salutations were over, and the captain looked in her direction, she ducked her head and continued her work. He was handsome in the light.  
“Finn!”  
She looked up and saw Sophie, pulling her hands off the stitches she was currently removing. “You’re being too rough,” her friend said. The airman under her fingers grimaced gratefully at Sophie, his lips pulled taut in an effort to make no noise.  
“Oh. Thanks.” Finn bent her head back to the stitches, slicing the threads more gently.  
“Hey, where were you yesterday?”  
“Got called into a surgery. Did you hear Roy almost got gutted?”  
“Almost? Shame. Shitbag deserves it.”  
“Sophie!”  
Sophie glanced around, and then pulled Finn to the side, out of earshot of the patients. “Listen to me, Finley Blake. Charlotte Finley Blake. If you tell me one more time that those things are your fault, I am going to rip out my hair and strangle him with it.”  
Finn sighed. “I could be more-“  
“Have those bruises faded yet?”  
“Shhh.” Finn looked around. The gunner formerly in her care had taken it upon himself to gather discharge papers from the doctor, and was well out of earshot. “You know they haven’t.”  
Sophie’s eyes widened, looking at something behind her. Finn turned just in time to see Captain Rogers. “Nurse Blake. How’s the shoulder?”  
Sophie transferred her gaze to Finn, tilting her head and tightening her mouth. Finn shook her head in a miniscule movement, praying it wouldn’t catch his attention. She resisted the urge to raise her arm to the bruises. “Fine, thanks, Captain,” she muttered, suddenly feeling the ache she’d been ignoring all morning.  
“If it doesn’t get better, you should have Dr. Hewlett check it out, you know.”  
“Of course, sir.”  
“I’ll see you around, then, Blake.”  
“Yes, sir.” Steve Rogers walked away, and Finn could almost feel Sophie staring into her back.  
“Fucking Captain America? Are you serious?”  
“I was on my way to the showers last night. He saw the bruises.”  
“In the women’s dorms?”  
Finn stood up and took Sophie’s wrist. “Come on.” They slipped into supply closet, and among iodine bottles and sacks of bandages, she told her everything.  
Rather than shocked or angry, Sophie looked impressed. “You fucking tried to kill Roy?” she hissed, glancing at Finn’s fingers, which twitched, as if feeling blood drip from their tips.  
Finn shook her head to get the image out of her mind, and fixed Sophie with a desperate look. Her uniform felt too tight, too hot, and she wished she could be outdoors. “Out of all of this, that’s all you get? I’m going to have to transfer or something! He saw me loosen the tourniquet!”  
Sophie waved a hand. “Nobody’s going to trust the word of a man with severe head trauma and blood loss.”  
“Nobody’s going to stop him from getting me for it, though!” The fear of how real this possibility was bolted through her, but it was fleeting. Fear wouldn’t help her survive when Roy recovered.  
“You know what? Fuck him. Fuck that bastard Roy Collins. He has made your life hell for so long, it serves him right to see his dedicated fiancée try to push him off a cliff. I will pay Captain Fucking America to keep watch over you if I need to. He can’t do this anymore.”  
The door cracked open, and Finn looked despairingly at Sophie as a familiar blond head poked through. “Sorry, ladies, but Captain Fucking America doesn’t hire out. And I think Harrison just tore his stitches.”  
Finn swore under her breath as she shouldered past him to the cocky pilot, who now lay, fuming and bleeding, tended by several smug nurses.

* * *

 

Missions came and went, and with each engine roar, Finn thought of Roy’s healing stomach, coming closer and closer to re-entering the main sick bay where he would be free to reveal her treason. Her stomach twisted at the thought of being close to him again, and she had taken to removing her engagement ring any time nobody would see.

Captain Rogers had been in and out of the bay, and though Finn questioned his regular visits to the men he worked with, she never mentioned the injuries that seemed to heal from gashes to scratches within a day, the broken bones that always managed to straighten themselves out by the end of the week. She had set a few of the bones herself; he was always complacent, and though he grimaced when she tugged his pieces back into place, he always refused her offer of a hand to squeeze. “We’ve already got one broken bone here, Finn. And yours don’t heal quite as fast as mine do.”

She couldn’t help but agree, and by the fourth time, in one of the private exam rooms, she held the hand out merely to make him grin. The distraction allowed her to pull his shoulder, with a clicking, grinding sound, back into place, and he grunted, the smile sliding into a grimace. “Gotta remember not to trust you nurses. Even when you seem to be on my side, you always got something up your sleeve.”

Finn smiled, looping a sling around his neck and arm, which she was sure he would discard at the next opportunity. “If you can’t trust us, who can you trust?”

Sure enough, he slipped the sling off and brought his hand up to brush at the collar of her uniform. “Now that we’ve fixed my shoulder, how’s yours?”

She shrugged him off. “It’s fine. You can hardly see the bruising.”

“It seems your-” he bit off the word -” _beloved_ didn’t get off so easily. He still hasn’t regained consciousness, correct? I heard Dr. Hewlett mentioning ‘long term options’ last night.”

Finn looked at him, blood cold, and lowered her voice. “Listen, Captain. Anything I may or may not have done in the surgery that night couldn’t possibly have been appropriate recompense for just a couple of bruises. I would never do that to serve only my own purposes."

The Captain glanced away from her, the hand on her collar flexing, then dropping, as if realizing its inappropriate placement. “So, hypothetically. If you did. Why?”

 Finn’s jaw tightened, her shoulder feeling cold at the loss of the Captain’s large hand, and she hoped she wasn’t visibly flushed. “Remember Howie? Greene? Shepherd?”

His blue eyes narrowed.“They were all on Collins’s crew, right?”

She snorted bitterly, feeling the paralyzing guilt ooze back over her. “Sure, they were. Then they each tried to put the plane down safely in a field, or escape an engine fire, or something. Each of them did something that kept Roy from coming back here. To me.”

“Finn, what he did wasn’t your fault-“

She laughed bitterly and tugged down her collar, showing the green-and-yellow bruises that had only begun to fade. “Yeah, because I can’t do something like this to myself, right? But let me tell you something.” Her hands shook, and she pushed them through her hair. “Howie can’t focus his eyes for more than a minute because of me. Greene’s a lefty now, because his right hand is a lump of bones- because of me. Shepherd hasn’t had a full night’s sleep in a month because he keeps waking up to nightmares of my fiancé cutting off the flow to his flight mask until he agreed to turn the plane back. You want to tell me it’s not my fault, but ask them – Roy did this to them so he could come home to me.” 

She touched the bruises, hating how much she wanted to tell the Captain about how she’d gotten them. Angry and tired, she got up and started picking up the miscellaneous supplies that were littered around the room.

Steve was quiet, but she felt his presence at her back. When she stretched to put a pair of scissors back on a high shelf, he took them from her and set them in their place. She turned around against the counter, surprised to see him so close, and waited for another lecture about how Roy’s actions weren’t her fault and shouldn’t blame herself. She got them often enough from Sophie. 

Instead, Captain Rogers bent his head, gently pulled her sleeve closer to her neck, and re-fastened the top button that had come undone earlier in the day. When he was finished, his hand rested there, and he finally opened his mouth. She braced herself.

The exam room door flew open, and there was Sophie. For once, she didn’t comment on Steve’s proximity. Her face was grim.

“Lieutenant Collins just woke up, Finn. He’s asking for you.”


End file.
